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Opinion

Watford fans – Brutal comments on Newcastle, Xisco, Referee, Watford, Everything…

3 years ago
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Watford fans watched their team relegated second bottom of the Premier League, ahead of only Norwich in 2019/20.

An instant return to the top tier saw only Norwich ahead of the Hornets as they finished runners up in the 2020/21 Championship.

After getting used to an ongoing Premier League existence with four relatively comfortable seasons of 45, 40, 41 and then 50 points (only once in these 14/15 years of Mike Ashley have Newcastle managed 50 points in the Premier League), it came as a shock for them to drop by 16 points and be relegated on 34 points in 2019/20.

The big question is whether they can survive this season and then build on that.

With seven points from six games, from the outside you would imagine the Watford fans would be quite happy with their start, after all, keeping that average of points per games up, would see them end this season on 44 points.

However, reading the comments from Watford fans (see below) after the 1-1 draw with Newcastle, I think the mood overall is anything but happy or satisfied.

Many Watford fans wanting rid of manager Xisco Munoz (four more points than Steve Bruce so far…) already, not impressed with most of their team, certainly not impressed by the referee on Saturday, whilst as for their opponents…not at all impressed with a Newcastle United team and Head Coach who failed to beat Watford; feeble display on Saturday.

I think to get a decent idea of another team/club, the go to place is listening to what their fans are saying, and from looking at comments before and after this draw against Newcastle, I think there is a lot of realism amongst the Watford fans.

Worries that their team isn’t strong enough to cope with the Premier League, not enough strengthening in the summer. Supporters thinking they deserved to beat Norwich, who the Watford fans appear to think are one of the clubs they can realistically finish above, however, more accepting that they faced a much changed and unsettled Villa team on the opening day of the season and got away with a 3-2 win that probably they wouldn’t be getting if playing them now.

As for Newcastle, the Watford fans clearly seeing a team that they have to try and finish above if they are to stay up, with a Steve Bruce led NUFC seen very much as real relegation candidates.

An ‘interesting’ season ahead for both Watford fans and Newcastle supporters…

Watford fans commenting via their WFC Forums message board:

‘Danny Rose is the classiest left back we’ve had at the club for as long as I can remember. Some of his passing is exquisite and he has the experience and nous to handle tricky opposition forwards. Second name on the team sheet now for me. Hope he keeps fit.

Wish we’d signed that St Maxim or whatever his name is. Some player.’

‘If a referee is good enough to officiate a Premier League match between Watford and Newcastle, he is good enough to take charge of Chelsea v Man City or Arsenal v Tottenham but we know that new officials get eased in with lower profile fixtures. It exposes entirely the idea that the Premier League is a level playing field. Some matches are clearly more important than others.’

‘Ref could have booked Darlow after about 20 minutes!

The ridiculous one was when the ref trotted all the way up to Darlow in front of the Rookery to make a show of telling to hurry up, then as he walked away Darlow did a comedy act of letting the ball roll underneath his foot and past him towards the goal, thereby wasting more time.’

‘I don’t think he was biased against us, I think he was just really, really bad. There were plenty of bad decisions made in our favor, there were just far more that went against us.’

‘We signed Sarr instead, and he’s scored the same amount of Prem goals as ASM in about half the games in a worse team, so I’m not losing any sleep over him!’

‘On the funny side, that’s probably the worst we’ve played against Newcastle at home in the Prem (including the two seasons where we went straight back down) yet once again they’ve failed to come away with three points with yet another 1-1 draw. Hopefully it’ll be the point that keeps us up rather than sends us down!’

‘Sissoko was excellent.’

‘That was the most enjoyable game I’ve seen in a while. It was scrappy, feisty, chaotic and far from perfect but if that didn’t get your hairs up then football probably isn’t for you. The atmosphere was absolutely electric and there isn’t many things I get a bigger adrenaline rush from than seeing Watford attack the Rookery in the second half, especially when we are chasing the game. That’s why I love going to football.

Absolute scenes when King put us 2-1 up*. Haven’t seen a goal celebrated like that in a long time…’

‘Newcastle, had done their homework. Played physical, ugly football and exploited an inexperienced, nervous referee. I wonder whether the Longstaff set play was the result our tactic of having 11 players in the box defending corners. They had 6 up for the corner but by the time Longstaff got the ball there were 9 Newcastle players in or around the box. We need to keep on of the front 3 up when defending corners or have the opposition queuing up to put shots into a crowded box.’

‘Newcastle came to do a job on us and we played right into their hands. They time wasted from the get go and caused us problems having numerous free headers. Luckily for us they are pony, mind so are we.

Xisco is improving but slowly, he needs to buck his ideas up if he wants to be a PL manager at the end of the season.’

‘Foster made a mistake on their goal. He missed it. It should have been a fairly comfortable save.’

‘All things considered it was a decent point given that Newcastle could have scored another 2 or 3 today and both sides had chances to win it late on. I think it was a point Watford deserved, they kept fighting, kept trying to get back into the game and didnt give up like previous sides might have done.’

‘The Aussie ref was dreadful and came close to completely losing control.

Newcastle soon found they could ignore him and run the game the way they wanted to.

Just 4 minutes of added time at the end was disgraceful. There were 5 substitutions, a goal, a VAR disallowed goal and some injury stoppages, feigned or otherwise. And that’s before you start considering Newcastle’s extreme time wasting. If he is not refereeing in the Championship next week there is something wrong with the assessment system.’

‘What I don’t understand is why people keep referring to last season’s defensive record. The only reason it happened was because of woeful finishing from the opposition. Thankfully Newcastle were just as bad today. Play a half decent side and we will get absolutely murdered week in week out.’

‘An awful game between two sides bereft of quality and an absolute shambles of a referee.

Rose was the only one of our starting 11 who deserved more than a 4/10.

Our central defence is appalling. Who could have predicted that not strengthening this horribly weak area could end up costing us? Oh yeah, everyone.

Dennis, Sarr and King were mostly ineffective. Sarr just didn’t look bothered. I just hope he keeps getting the odd goal so that some idiot buys the hype and gives us 40m for him in January. We massively overpaid for a very limited player who can only impact games where he’s afforded space and time.

Sissoko looks nothing like a footballer. Athletic but devoid of any skill.

Cathcart must never play again. Neither must foster.

We got a point, but Newcastle were awful. They could and should have been 4 up before we nicked a goal.

We are so appalling. It’s extremely worrying how disjointed and lacking in a plan we are. Wtf is the point of Xisco?’

‘I think Xisco is too one dimensional and, to be frank, fairly clueless tactically. As much as he’s a great bloke, he will cost us points with his selection.’

‘We were lucky it was a Bruce ‘coached’ Newcastle. Somebody half decent in front of goal would have had the match ball.’

‘Yep, we made so many errors in that first half 4 or 5 nill wouldn’t have been a surprise. That is the difference between the PL and the championship, WTE’s error against Brighton was ruthlessly punished, luckily Newcastle are likely going to be down there this season, but any team good enough to finish higher than 15th or so would’ve had a field day in that first half.’

‘I thought Newcastle were more up for that match, they (cynically) bossed us out of the first half. For denying goal scoring opportunities Foster MoTM for me. We were much better second half, but that suicidal set of substitutions that saw Sissoko and Tufan overran nearly cost us. Fortunately we survived got an equaliser and Etebo came on restore numbers in midfield and to steady the ship.

Overall Newcastle were the losers. They should have banked three points against relegation rivals, and squandered plenty of chances to make our goal difference poorer.

So not a disaster, but the team needs better management than that match showed.’

‘Foster had a nightmare for their goal.

Why did he flap at it? Should have either caught it or just parried it.’

Rose isnt fit. Newcastle fans taunting him for being fat.’

‘Great goal out of the GT book – near post corner flicked on and nodded in at the back stick. I must be getting easy to please in my old age but I thought (despite the awful ref, Newcastles gamesmanship and some under par individual performances from some of our boys) that was an exciting game that we arguably deserved to win. Xisco deserves praise for subs and changing the formation 2 or 3 times in the 2nd half.’

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